EU Commissioner to be guest on Xarabank

EU enlargement commissioner Gunther Verheugen is to take part in the TV discussion programme Xarabank on October 18, programme presenter Joe Azzopardi said yesterday.

He said Mr Verheugen would be the only guest on the panel and will answer questions from the floor.

Opposition leader Alfred Sant referred to Mr Verheugen's planned TV appearance when he spoke at Kirkop MLP club yesterday, saying the EU commissioner would end up being the protagonist in a programme of subtle PN propaganda.

He said that in the coming months the MLP would be working far more intensely on spreading its message that there was an alternative to membership of the EU, and that was a partnership as suited Malta.

At the same time, the party expected a major effort by the government propaganda machine to brainwash the people about what was being negotiated with Brussels and many people would be brought over from Brussels and other capitals to tell the Maltese that they should agree with the way they had been betrayed.

Indeed it had already been heard that Mr Verheugan would end up being a protagonist in the programme of subtle PN propaganda Xarabank on PBS, Dr Sant said.

Dr Sant said the prime minister's reaction to the EU enlargement report last Wednesday was humiliating. The EU candidate countries had been put in the same position as children in a kindergarten. The government, instead of being embarrassed over the way it was being treated and told what to do, was overjoyed because it was told it would have to continue to accept all of the EU's regulations.

The MLP's policiy of seeking a partnership with the EU, rather than accession, would enable Malta to take as much as it could give, and not give a lot and receive hardly anything, as was the outcome of the EU membership talks, Dr Sant said.

In a reaction, Mr Azzopardi denied that Xarabank was a PN propaganda programme and said he was reiterating the challenge he made last month for anyone in the Labour Party to show him where any of the programmes were partial in favour of the government, and he would immediately resign.

There is no love lost between Dr Sant and Mr Verheugen. On Valentine's Day two years ago Dr Sant was reported warning the EU Commissioner that he should respect the stand taken by the MLP on EU membership.

Referring to remarks the commissioner had said, Dr Sant said: "If he keeps talking like that about us, we will stop using good manners. We will respect him only if he respects us. He who talks too much has to learn how to bite his tongue or else we'll bite it for him."

Mr Verheugen had earlier said that the Labour Party was isolated and lacked information. He had also said he had asked social democratic parties in Europe to intensify their contacts with the MLP to obtain national consensus on the EU in Malta.

The two met in Malta in March of that year in what Mr Verheugen later described as an open, friendly and constructive meeting.